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It's Not You, It's My Enemies
Heroes have the most dangerous job. They can accept that for themselves, but not for their loved ones. The Hero has a ready and willing Love Interest who makes him happy, who would be good for him, who even the fans want to see him with. No Love Triangle could be perfect. It's plain as day that he cares more about her than anything else...plain to everyone including the Big Bad. The Hero knows that his enemies will never let him have a love life in peace; they'll strike down the people dearest to him first chance they get. The only way to protect his beloved from becoming Big Bad cannon fodder is by letting her go. Despite what a noble, selfless move it is, the spurned Love Interest's reaction will usually be, "Screw the danger! I don't care!" to show they love The Hero just as much. This adds It's Personal flavoring to a Story Arc, as a safe® relationship is the reward to look forward to once you've defeated the threat and made the world a safer place. It never seems to occur to anyone that telling the Big Bad you've broken up is not generally going to get you released from his dungeon with an apology and a consolatory cappuccino. The argument also gets rather silly when the hero spends every waking moment in his civvies in or around said quasi-love interest's company; thus any villain looking at the situation would need Psychic Powers to realize they're not a couple. Of course, anyone with that level of understanding realizes that they are emotionally attached no matter what they say. Justified or not, this fear is why The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life. Though in all fairness, in a practical sense, this should actually ensure that the hero's loved one should be granted Plot Armor from this method. But the sad fact of the matter is that all too often it doesn't. In fact, the only way that a character would be safe is if they are considered too minor for writers to care about. (And, even then, these characters are not always safe, either.) However, there are also other certain flaws to consider, as villains are normally not known for being discriminate about their potential victims. So sadly, heroes, even if you do convince your enemies that your loved ones are random strangers you never heard of, chances are they will most likely go after your loved ones anyways. (Not to mention that normally heroes save anyone whom their enemies attack, regardless of whether if the Hero personally knows them or not, because it's the right thing to do.) Examples *This is the reason Batman tries to avoid getting serious with anyone, why he has so few friends and why he's a Jerkass to a majority of his sidekick squad. It's not that he wants to be, he just wants to protect them, because the things his Rogues Gallery does are better not seen by anyone, really. Plus, he doesn't want anyone else growing up like him, bitter and angry at the world and he's trying to avoid causing anyone pain from when he inevitably falls in combat or finally snaps. Batman's world is not happy. **And he's not wrong: considering the whole thing about Jason Todd (just for starters; if you want more, try The Killing Joke or Death of the Family), you can see that even in costume, it's hard to hang around Batman. **Although speaking of Joker, he's actually something of a subversion. While he won't think twice about attacking a Robin or a Batgirl, it's been noted numerous times that Joker's had the ability to discover who Batman really is, and could potentially attack those close to him in their civilian lives, but never has because he simply doesn't care who Batman is behind the mask. Barbara being paralyzed in The Killing Joke was actually totally unrelated to her life as Batgirl. *The first Spider-Man film: Peter gives Mary Jane with the Just Friends excuse when she finally tells him she loves him after nearly losing her to a Sadistic Choice. (And let's not forget he did lose a love interest in an almost identical scenario in the comic books.) All three movies nonetheless climax with villains luring Spider-Man by holding Mary-Jane hostage, whether they're together or not. *In The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter tries to end his relationship with Gwen this way, but ultimately changes his mind. *The ending of most Batman romantic subplots. In the original Tim Burton films, though, he took a painfully realistic look on this trope, though technically only one relationship ended this way (unmarked spoilers, for Batman fans might typically view this all as It Was His Sled): **In Batman, Bruce had originally viewed this as his issue with Vicki, until he told her. This was broken up by The Joker coming in. Vicki ended up dumping him because she couldn't handle it. This ends up haunting him for the rest of the Burton-Shumacher quadrilogy. **In Batman Returns, his issue had been the way he ended with Vicki, leading him to try to get over it with Selina Kyle. Once again, he is the one dumped, as Selina is Ax-Crazy by the end of the movie and attempts murder-suicide with her ex-boss, which also caused a Tear Jerker. **This trope only presumably worked with Chase Meridan. After the whole Riddler thing, it seems that she and Batman are going to still be together, but for some reason, the next movie had Batman dating someone else. We can assume that she either got bored with him or Bruce pulled this card. *In the Iron Man movies, Tony Stark subverts this and in doing so shows why it's not necessarily a bad thing. He reveals his identity as Iron Man to the world, and makes no particular secret of his love for Pepper Potts either (though it's not clear if he himself 100% realizes how deep it is)... and what ensues in the subsequent movies shows that secret identities are not necessarily bad ideas. Gallery Category:About Heroes Category:Heroic Events